


rotten work

by nasa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: "If you want to keep him," the man says, "You fight.""Or what?" Steve asks."Or he becomes our slave."-A run-in with a witch sends Steve and Tony to an alien planet where they're taken prisoner. Steve has to fight to keep Tony safe.





	rotten work

“I hate magicians,” Tony says, for what might be the fourth time in as many minutes. “Have I said that, recently? I fucking hate magicians.”

“I know, Tony,” Steve says. His voice is professional, but there’s an edge of humor in there, too; he, at least, is entertained by this.

 _Well,_ Tony thinks,  _glad someone’s having fun._

“Seriously, though,” Tony continues, dodging a ray of blue light and knocking off the magic robot that caused it. It goes plummeting into the sidewalk in a spray of ocean-green sparks. “Why are we stuck dealing with this? I thought Strange was in charge of the magic stuff. I mean, that’s literally his only job, we take the normal people and he takes the mystical weirdos -“

“Because he’s getting married,” Steve says patiently, “And we don’t want to disturb him if we don’t have to. Seven o’clock!”

Tony turns just in time to catch a robot waving a magic sword at him and block it with his light-energy shield. “This is why I hate marriage, Steve,” Tony says. “Weddings, god. He’s the fucking Sorcerer Supreme, you’d think he’d at least leave Wong behind to deal with this shit so we don’t have to.”

“Wong is a good friend of his,” Steve says. “We’re not. It’s fair he left us.”

“Oh, but he and Scarlet Witch are so close?” Tony argues. “Of all the Avengers to leave behind, why did it have to be us?”

“You volunteered.”

“Well, of course I did, I hate weddings, Steve, keep up.”

Steve doesn’t respond, but Tony can imagine the way he’s rolling his eyes right now. Normally, he doesn’t engage Tony in banter on the comms, but today, it’s just the two of them, the rest of the superhero community off throwing rice at Strange’s destination Hawaiian wedding, and the team leader in him has relaxed a little. “You’re ridiculous,” he says. “Watch your left side, these things seem to know it’s your weaker flank.”

“I resent the implication that I am anything less than perfect,” Tony says primly, but adjusts his stance accordingly.

“Perfect is a variable term,” Steve says. Tony can see him, on the ground, in the middle of Union Square. He’s got a good position, half-defended by the now-shattered remains of a fountain. The robots are only coming from one side, and he’s picking them off easily. “Perfect fighter, definitely not. But perfect in bed -“

“Aw, honey,” Tony grins. “You flatter me.”

“Also definitely not,” Steve finishes.

Tony gasps, faux-shocked. “Sweetheart, I can’t believe you,” Tony says. “That’s - wow, that really wounds me, you know, you’ve said a lot of things to me over the years, but I don’t think anything that cruel - Steve!”

Because he’s just caught sight of the main big-bad approaching Steve from behind. She’s the only non-robot, and, like Wanda, she floats on her own power, carried on a wave of blue light. She seems supremely unimpressed by the carnage they’ve wrecked around her.

“Five o’clock!”

Steve whirls, but it’s too late. The girl’s already raising her hands, and even from this distance, Tony can see the evil glint in her eye. It’s like that look stalkers get; after a while, you learn to recognize the characteristics.

“Shit,” Tony says, abandoning the robots around him and diving downwards. The girl twists her hands together, building a ball of blue fire -

And Tony slams into her. Her body puts up no resistance, clearly surprised by the attack; Tony, who had been expecting some, finds himself shooting towards the ground much faster than he ended. He tries to pump the breaks, but doesn’t quite manage to stop himself before they’re falling straight onto the jagged, rubble remains of the fountain the girl’s robots had shattered. Tony, in his gold-titanium alloy suit, is fine. The girl is not quite so lucky.

A piece of rebar impales her dead in the stomach, right around her abdominal aorta. Immediately, it begins to bleed, heavily. She won’t make it until the ambulance arrives.

“Shit,” Tony says, retracting his helmet. Around them, the robots have fallen. Tony hears Steve come up behind him, pause at his back. “I’m sorry, fuck.”

The girl coughs. Her lips are wet with blood, stained with her own red lipstick. She looks so young, up close, no more than eighteen, but she looks so angry, too. “Fuck you,” she grits. Before Tony knows what’s happening, her hands are blue.

“Shit,” Tony says again, scrambling to his feet. “Steve, get -“

The world explodes into blue light, and a moment later, everything goes black.

-

He wakes up covered in sand.

“Tony,” someone is saying beside him. They’re shaking his shoulder. “Tony, please, honey, you gotta wake up.”

“Steve?” Tony croaks. He blinks his eyes open hesitantly, and is greeted with a startling bright light and the faint silhouette of what might be Tony’s partner.

“Tony,” Steve says with relief. “You gotta get up. We need to get moving.”

“Where are we?” Tony asks, still blinking hard to get his eyes to adjust to the light. He feels light; when he glances down at himself, he realizes it’s because he’s not wearing the armor, just the t-shirt and jeans he had on underneath it.

“Not on Earth,” Steve says grimly. He offers Tony a hand; Tony takes it, letting Steve haul him to his feet. Steve’s not dressed for fighting anymore, either, it seems. Must have been the magic.

“How do you know?” Tony asks, scanning the world around them. It looks like Earth; the middle of the desert, maybe, but still Earth.

“Because five minutes ago a UFO just went flying overhead.”

Okay, then. “It could just be Nevada,” Tony tries. “Ever heard of Area 51?”

Steve shoots him a look. “It’s not Nevada, Tony. Come on, we have to get moving.”

“Moving where?” All around them, as far as Tony can see, is barren desert; no trees, no buildings, nothing even resembling anything other than sand and sand dunes. “We have no idea what way we need to go.”

“The ship was headed that way,” Steve says, pointing off into the distance. “It’s our best chance at finding someplace with food and water. Either way, we can’t stay here.”

The implication goes unspoken:  _or we’ll die._ Tony first, because he’s just a measly human without the suit; Steve next, because being a super soldier doesn’t make him invulnerable.

Tony glances him over, now, looking for injuries. He looks relatively unscathed, aside from his missing uniform and missing shield. “Okay,” Tony says, turning towards the way Steve pointed. “Let’s get moving, then.”

In the end, they make it less than five minutes towards their destination. Not because Tony is too weak to walk, or Steve has some hidden internal injury; but because, five minutes into their little hike, the UFO appears above them again. Only, this time, it doesn’t keep going.

“This doesn’t bode well,” Tony says, as he watches a hatch on the bottom of the saucer open up. A moment later, a rope ladder is thrown out.

“It could just be a Good Samaritan,” Steve offers. He doesn’t sound like he believes it himself.

Still, Tony gives him a look. “When have we ever been that lucky?”

Steve sighs. “Well, we can’t outrun the thing. You go first.”

So Tony does. He hadn’t remembered how hard it was to climb a rope ladder; he’s pretty sure he shakes the thing horribly, but Steve doesn’t complain, and eventually, Tony makes it up into the belly of the plane. A moment later, Steve joins him, and pulls the rope ladder back in behind him.

Inside the cabin is a single man. Or, Tony thinks he’s a man; it’s hard to tell what an alien species secondary sexual characteristics are. Because this guy is definitely an alien. His skin, for one, is purple, and covered in scales, and instead of hair, something vaguely grass-like is growing out of his head into a mohawk.

“Welcome,” the man says. His voice is warped and robotic, like he’s using a universal translator. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, cautiously, pushing himself to his feet and brushing off his pants. “Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, who  _are_ you?”

“I am R’tagar,” the man says. “And I am the emperor’s finest bounty hunter.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Tony says.

Steve squares his jaw. “Look, sir -“ he starts.

He doesn’t get a chance to finish. They come up from behind them, two more of - whatever the fuck this guy is. In a split second, there are burlap sacks over their heads, what feel like electrified handcuffs locking their arms behind their back, and they’ve been shoved down to their knees.

“I’ll take you to meet his stable master, now,” the man - R’tagar - says. A moment later, there’s a buzz and a jolt as the plane starts moving.

“Well,” Tony says, after a beat of silence. “At least we’re not going to die of thirst.”

Steve snorts. “Very reassuring,” he says, but he sways sideways so his shoulder bumps against Tony’s. Tony bumps him back.

“We’ve been in worse situations,” Tony says. “It’ll be fine.”

-

“They must be separated.”

It’s the first thing the man says when he sees them. Tony can only assume he’s the man R’tagar called the stablemaster; he doesn’t know for sure, because he didn’t introduce himself. He’s sitting on what Tony thinks is a quasi-throne; he’s got a goblet of orange liquid in his hand, and a woman sprawled at his feet.

“You can take them to the servants quarters,” the man continues. “The big one can work in the forge. The scrawny one can serve the champions.”

And, okay, Tony really doesn’t think he deserves the disdainful once-over this guy gives him. He may not be as jacked as Steve, sure, but neither is this guy, and if he didn’t have alien strength, Tony is willing to bet that Tony could crush him in an arm wrestling competition.

“Look, Tom Cruise,” Tony starts, because, really, that’s what this guy looks like, like Tom Cruise got pranked instead of Carrie, but Steve interrupts him before he can finish.

“We need to stay together,” Steve says. His voice is firm, but not antagonizing; not yet, at least. “We’re partners, it’s important.”

The man raises an eyebrow. “Well, I can’t say I’m an expert on whatever colorless species yours seems to be, but I am an expert on what we do here. And we don’t pair up prisoners together.”

“Never?” Steve presses. “There isn’t anything we could do?”

The man tilts his head. “Not really. Not unless you want to fight.”

Tony’s feeling more and more uneasy about this by the second, but Steve just asks, “Fight?”

“We have champions, here,” the man says, gesturing at himself. “And we have prizes.” He wave a hand at the lanky redhead sprawled across the pillow next to his feet. “Prizes are won in battle. Since you arrived with him, all you need to do is win your fights, and you will keep him. Lose, though, and he falls into the pool. Champions chose their prizes from the pool in order of their ranking. And an ass like that - well. Let’s just say, once you lose him, you won’t get him back.”

“And what will happen to him if I don’t?”

The man tilts his head. “He will serve. In a brothel, probably. Possibly the kitchens. Depends on his constitution.”

Tony meets Steve’s eyes. For a moment, he looks almost scared, before a mask of determination covers it.

“Then I’ll fight,” he says.

A smile flickers across the man’s face, but it’s gone as soon as it appears. “Welcome to the team,” he says. “They’ll take you to your room.”

Two guards step forward from behind the ornate chair.

“But you haven’t - what are the rules?” Tony demands. “When will this happen? What -“

“Hey, kid,” the man interrupts. “Shut up. They’ll take you to your room.”

The guards advance forward, until they’re crowding up on Tony. Steve pulls Tony close to his side before any of them can touch him. His hand splays across Tony’s hip, half covering his side, and the way he’s looking at the guards is unmistakable. Apparently, they’re not interesting in losing a limb, today, because they don’t make any further effort to touch Tony. They do jab Steve, though, with what looks like a cattle prod in the middle of his back, until he takes the cue and starts moving.

“See you tomorrow,” the man calls after them as they go. Tony has time for one last glance over his shoulder at the man, before the guards sweep them out of the room.

Their cell is decent, as cells go. It’s half-underground, so cool despite the summer heat, and it’s relatively dry. There’s no bed, or blankets, but there is a straw pallet in the corner that seems to be relatively uninfected from bedbugs. There’s a hole in the corner, for bodily functions, and at the top of the back wall, a small rectangular window looking out onto what Tony thinks might be a street.

“Home sweet home,” Tony says, after the guards have left and the door had clanged shut behind them. He’s aiming for joking, but it comes out flat. Steve, being Steve, picks up on it.

“We’re going to be fine,” he says. He’s walking around the perimeter of the room slowly, one hand trailing along the wall - checking for weaknesses, hidden irregularities. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Faster if those bars weren’t made of vibranium,” Tony notes.

Steve glances over his shoulder at them. “It’ll be fine,” he says again.

“You shouldn’t have volunteered for this,” Tony says.

“Tony -“

“I can handle whatever they throw at me, Steve, you have no idea what you’re getting into, this champions could be  _dangerous -“_

“I am the greatest hand to hand fighter on the Avengers team,” Steve interrupts. Tony raises an eyebrow. Steve sighs. “Okay, fine, maybe not better than Thor. Whatever, it’s not my fault, he always uses the lightening when he’s losing, it’s cheating.”

“And you think these people are going to care about cheating?”

“They’re not  _Thor,”_ Steve says. “Tony. Really. It’s going to be okay, I promise. I’ll show you. Just - what’s done is done. Let’s not fight about this, okay?”

Tony huffs. “Why is it you always want to end the argument once you’ve had the last word, huh?” he asks, but he doesn’t say anything else on the topic.

They go to bed that night without food or water. The pallet is a little small for two grown men, but they make do, and in the end, curling around each other serves as a necessary way to keep warm as the night chill sets in. When Tony closes his eyes, he can almost imagine they’re home - on the Quinjet, maybe, or in one of those gross beds in medical, but still home, together, their teammates only a few rooms away.

All he has to do is open his eyes, though, and see the bars blocking their exit, to know that’s not the case. He spends most of the night not sleeping, trying to brainstorm ways to break free.

The next morning the sun rises bright and early - earlier than it should, Tony thinks, which maybe means this planet rotates a little faster than Earth - and is followed by a delivery via the guards. It’s bread and water, and just the smallest bit of dried meat. “Eat it,” Steve says, offering it to Tony. Tony takes it from him and returns it to the brown paper bag in which it arrived.

“We should save it,” Tony says. “For later. After you fight. You’ll need the protein.”

Steve doesn’t argue. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the fighting, right now - like Tony, he seems more preoccupied with breaking out than finding a way to acclimatize to their situation - but Tony is worried enough for the two of them. On Earth, yes, Steve is one of the strongest men alive -  _the_ strongest man alive, if Hulk and Thor are excluded from the count. But this isn’t Earth. This is an alien planet full of alien species that, for all Tony knows, are two or three times as strong and evolved as humans. Thor is an alien, after all; what if all the fighters are like Asgardians? Even trying his hardest, Steve’s never been able to beat Thor. Would he be able to beat one of his foot soldiers?

By the time the guards arrive, Tony’s just about tied his stomach in knots with worry. He half wants to ask Steve to stay, to not fight, but he knows what answer he’d get. There’s no way Steve would give up on Tony that easily, not when there’s something he can do to help.

Tony rises when Steve does, as the guards insert the key into the cell door. The door beeps and swings open; three guards wait on the other side, all of them in heavy, SWAT-like armor, holding their electrified cattle prods.

“Steve -“ Tony starts, but doesn’t get a chance to finish before Steve is turning around and cupping Tony’s face in his hand.

“I’ll be fine,” Steve says, ducking down to press a quick kiss to Tony’s lips. “I promise. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Tony swallows hard, running a hand down Steve’s side. He’s strong and unharmed; he can win this fight. He can win any fight. Tony nods. “See you in a few hours,” he repeats, and then Steve is gone.

Tony spends the entire day pacing the room, thinking of nothing but who Steve is fighting. He tries to work on escape plans for a while, but he has no data to work with, nothing but his own genius, and his own genius keeps getting distracted with worries about Steve, where he may be, what he might be doing, how hurt he might be. Scratched, bruised, impaled; sprawled in the dirt, blood pooling slowly around him -

But when sunset comes, and the guards come jangling down the hallway with Steve in tow, Steve’s - fine.

“See you tomorrow,” one of the guards says, locking the door behind him. Steve, always polite, waves as they disappear around the corner.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, as soon as they’re out of earshot. “Where did you get hit?”

“I’m fine, Tony,” Steve says, even as Tony runs his hands over Steve’s chest, his sides, his belly, systematically checking for injuries. “Tony, really. The guy was a nobody, it only took me thirty seconds to take him out.”

“Take him out?” Tony asks, taking an unconscious step back. “You didn’t -“

“I made him yield,” Steve clarifies quickly. “Come on, Tony, I’m not going to hurt an innocent man.”

“Right,” Tony says, stepping closer as an apology. “Right, I knew that.” Tony runs his palms over Steve’s shoulders, brings them up to cup the back of his neck. “You’re really all right?”

“I’m really all right,” Steve promises, pressing a kiss to Tony’s temple. “And now so are you.”

Tony sighs, slumping into the warmth of his body. “I don’t like this,” he says. “I don’t - I don’t like you getting hurt because of me.”

“But I’m not getting hurt,” Steve points out. “Come on, Tony. This is a good solution. You know it, and I know it, so let’s just drop it, okay?”

So Tony does, choosing instead to push Steve back onto the pallet and crawl into his lap, grinding their bellies together.

There isn’t much talking after that.

-

The problem is, though Steve isn’t hurt the first time, he starts getting hurt after. The game works sort of like a tournament, a competition where you advance in the ranks. Steve had started off with the bottom of the barrel, the most incapable man, but now he’s rising to fight soldiers, warriors, kings in their own right.

For a week or two, everything is fine. But then one afternoon Steve comes back to their cell with a cut on his cheek. “Lucky hit,” he tells Tony, and lets him kiss it better. Then, a few days after that, he comes back with a sprained wrist. “It’ll be healed by morning,” he tells Tony, and lets Tony handle his wrist with gentle fingers. The day after that, it’s a broken finger. And then it’s like a damn has broken, and every day Steve is coming back with something disfigured - his ear torn half off, a slicing cut near his jugular, an arrow shaft through his bicep. He always insists it’s nothing, he can power through, but as time goes on and the wounds get more severe, Steve’s healing capabilities get more and more strained.

“Tony, it’s fine,” Steve promises, again and again. “It’s what I need to do to protect you, there’s not a doubt in my mind this is right.”

But every morning, Tony watches Steve leave him, and every night, he gets him back, sore and bruised and limping. Tony keeps working on an escape, but there’s not much he can do with stone walls and vibranium bars, not without some sort of weapon. He’d built Iron Man in a cave with a box of scraps, yes, it’s true, but at least then he’d had the scraps. Now, he has straw and dust and his own shit, if he wants to get disgusting about it, and he has no idea how any of that could come together to free them from their cell, let alone this facility. Tony tries to manipulate the guards, for a while - flatters them, offers his services, anything he can think to do - but they’re well trained. He gets nowhere.

After a few weeks, the guards move them; Steve has beaten enough of the emperor’s champions to move up into a higher bracket of warriors. The new room is larger, less dank, and has a small barred window that looks out onto the colosseum. It is level with the ground, almost subterranean, and Tony thinks when the fights get going, the dust must make it almost impossible to see.

Still, the first day Steve goes out to fight, Tony overturns the bucket and stands, craning his neck to see between the slats.

It takes a while to get to Steve. Champion after champion rolls out, and champion after champion is defeated, one after another. Then, after what feels like a dozen or so competitions, there’s a break. Tony is almost beginning to wonder if he’s looking out onto a different colosseum than Steve will compete in, when the emperor’s harsh foreign tongue spits out through the speakers.

Steve emerges onto the field. He wears only a crude helmet and breastplate; nothing to guard his legs, his arms, feet or hands. The majority of his face is bare, too, and even from a distance, Tony can see the dark purple of yesterday’s black eye bridging Steve’s nose.

His competitor emerges second. She is small, lithe; she moves gracefully, like running water, quick as a spider. Her skin is a deep purple, her hair a silvery-blue, and she smirks as she circles Steve, tracing elegant patterns in the dust with her toes.

There is more yelling, then a pause; then the sound of a gong, loud and final. The woman darts into action immediately, whirling her spear to cut at Steve’s knees, aiming for his tendons.

He moves just as fast, though, and parries the blow, countering it with one of his own. And so the fight begins. It is quick and brutal and difficult for Tony to follow; as soon as he thinks he’s caught a thread of what is to come, it changes again, like a whisper he can’t quite understand.

The fight is ended with the woman on her back in the dirt, the point of Steve’s spear pressed to her pulsing carotid. Sprawled in the dust, she looks suddenly less elegant, and her retreat is chased with the boos of the crowd.

She did not go down without laying several good hits of her own, though, a fact that becomes apparent to Tony when Steve is unceremoniously tossed back into their cell that evening.

“Hey,” he rasps, smiling up at Tony. His helmet and breastplate have been lost, somewhere between the ring and here, and without them Tony can clearly see the scalp wound tracing his hairline, the scarlet blood staining his cheeks.

“Sit down,” Tony orders, pressing Steve down onto their single pallet. Steve doesn’t even bother to put up a protest anymore; he knows it is no use.

Tony hands Steve a glass. “Here, drink this.” Tony turns away, so Steve will not read the lie on his face. “They gave us extra water today. You need it, to replenish the blood you lost.”

Steve hums and drains the glass in one go, then the second that Tony passes him. The third he sips more leisurely, and Tony returns to kneel at Steve’s feet, their single rag clasped in his hand, stiff as it is with dried blood.

“This might hurt,” Tony warns, like he always does, and presses the cloth to Steve’s scrape. Steve doesn’t even flinch; his eyes are on Tony’s, wide and considering.

“What?” Tony asks after a second, almost self-conscious.

“I love you,” Steve says.

Tony blinks at him. “I love you, too.”

Steve nods, satisfied, and closes his eyes. He leans a bit more into Tony’s touch than usual; Tony makes sure to curl up beside him extra tight when nightfall comes.

-

Some days are worse than others. Some days, Steve comes back almost triumphant, splattered in blood that’s not his own, few wounds to add to slowly healing collection. Those days, he and Tony might chat, might try to plan ways to escape - Steve has noticed a small hallway off the champions room, and he’s not sure where it goes; Tony heard the guards talking about an upcoming festival; Steve’s opponent today was wiry and thick and used strength as his only advantage, and Steve used the techniques the team had developed to contain the Hulk to take him down in less than sixty seconds.

Other days, Steve comes back unable to hold himself upright. Often, these days, the guards have to carry him into the cell, tossing him onto the ground like nothing more than dirt. It is left to Tony to tend to his wounds, to ease his pain, to kiss away the aches while his own guilt builds in his chest, a flood barely held back. Every day, he thinks today is the day he will snap, and every day he is wrong.

Until Steve comes back so destroyed he can barely speak.

“Your champion,” one of the guards sneers. Immediately, Tony knows it will be a bad day - Steve is sagging between the two of them, his feet not even touching the down - but he doesn’t realize how much until they push him forward and he goes like a rag doll, without any effort to keep himself upright.

“Steve,” Tony says, falling to his knees beside where Steve has been tossed, face-down in the dust. Behind him, he dimly registers the sound of the door closing, the clinking of the guard’s keys. “What happened to you?”

Steve doesn’t answer but with a groan. Tony turns his face so it’s not face down, but at an angle, but that only makes it worse; now he can see the red in Steve’s teeth, the blood drying in streaks from his nose, the burst vessels in his eyes.

“Back,” he manages finally. Tony moves slowly, not sure what this could be - is it broken? Is Steve paralyzed? Has he been impaled?

He peels the shirt away slowly, starting with tears up Steve’s sides then delicate, delicate movements on his back. Finally, the entire thing is revealed, and Tony has to take a deep breath, leaning back on his heels.

“Steve,” he says helplessly. Steve’s back is absolutely covered in slices, intersecting at odd angles, covering every possible inch of his skin. The slices are deep and still bleeding, red rivulets pulsing out from scabs that can’t quite seem to form. It looks like he’s been whipped.

“‘m fine,” Steve slurs into the dirt. “Just - worse than usual. Don’t worry. I won.”

“I know,” Tony says.

Tony has limited materials but eventually he decides it’s worth it to tear up his shirt to make bandages. He wets the strips of his t-shirt in the bucket of water in the corner, then lays them carefully across Steve’s mangled flesh, praying that these cuts are more superficial than they seem. At least then, they would heal quickly; at least then, Steve would not be left with a scarred, mottled back as a reminder.

Steve dozes in and out of consciousness as Tony works, eyelashes fluttering unevenly. Tony prays that’s just from exhaustion, not from some kind of neurological deficit; he can do nothing to treat that, here.

Finally, Tony is done. He wants to move Steve to the bed, but isn’t sure his fresh wounds can take it, and is even less sure the makeshift compresses he’s applied will stay on. So he curls up on the ground himself, carefully lifting Steve’s head so it’s pillowed on his lap, his face turned into Tony’s belly.

Tony runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, intending to give him a light scalp massage. Instead, though, his fingers hit a hard bump, a movement that makes Steve groan and shift. Carefully, Tony spreads the hair away from Steve’s scalp to reveal a goose-egg of a wound, clearly the cause of some blunt hit to the skull. Tony wonders if it was meant to kill.

“You have to stop doing this,” Tony murmurs, hand drifting down to rest, feather light, against Steve’s neck. Steve is sweaty and warm against him, almost like he’s feverish. Tony rubs as deep of circles as he dares. “You need a day to recover. You can’t keep doing this, Steve.”

“No,” Steve sighs, voice barely audible. “You can’t - they’ll destroy you.”

“They’re destroying you,” Tony says softly, as though a nice tone will soften the blow.

Steve’s head is heavy in Tony’s lap, the weight of his pulse against Tony’s fingers. “I need you,” he says, finally. “Please, no more tonight.”

Tony quiets, but he does not sleep.

-

The next morning, Steve is still sleeping when the guards arrive to take him away.

“He will not fight today,” Tony tells them, with a bravado he does not feel. He had removed the compresses at dawn to see brown scabs only just formed, the skin around them still red and angry. If Steve goes out now, he’ll tear open every last injury. With wounds like that, there’s no way he could win a fight, not against a halfway decent opponent; and most of the warriors here are not as gracious as Steve. They will not content themselves with a surrender, only a kill.

“If he does not fight, you only get until nightfall.”

Tony looks down at Steve’s sleeping face, the cut across his right cheek that’s just beginning to knit itself together. “Then we have until nightfall,” he says.

One of the guards shrugs, turns away. “Your funeral,” he says, already moving onto the next cell. The other guard is paused in the doorway, regarding Tony with something like pity.

“If he changes his mind, call for me,” he says. “I can take him out.”

Tony blinks. A rare show of kindness, from a barbarian. He gives him a nod, and the guard moves on.

Steve sleeps for two more hours, until the horn announcing the beginning of the first round blares. He startles to weakness, then, almost lunging straight out of Tony’s lap and tearing his back to pieces.

“Steve, it’s me, stop! Stop, it’s me!”

Steve glance around, disoriented, even as his body settles back into Tony’s arms. “Tony, but -“ He blinks over at Tony. Tony has the horrible privilege of watching realization dawn in his eyes. “No,” he whispers, voice choked, “You didn’t.”

“If you fight like this, you’ll die,” Tony says, fighting around the lump in his own throat. He doesn’t want to leave Steve, not when he’s beat like this, but he has no other choice. Him staying will just mean Steve hurts more. “I can take a bit of pain to prevent you from dying, Steve.”

“It’s not just a bit of pain!” Steve yells. “This is - Tony, you will be their  _slave,_ you will have to do whatever they tell you to. Fetch things, make things - Tony, they will make you  _service_ them. They won’t be kind about it.”

Tony shrugs, fighting the panicked tears he can feel burning behind his eyes. This is not the place for it. This is what needs to be done, and he will do it. He wants to do it. He’s been wanting to do this from day one. A little of fear doesn’t change that. “I’ve had sex before, Steve. Whatever it is, I’m sure I can handle it.”

Steve flinches. “Don’t call it that,” he says hoarsely. “It’s not sex, and you know it. It’s rape.”

Tony swallows. “Fine,” he snaps. “It’s rape. Is that what you want me to say? They’re going to rape me, Steve, they’re going to rape me because I’m their slave. You think I don’t know that? You think I’m naive to what goes on out there? I don’t know as much as you, but I know enough. And I know that it doesn’t matter. I will be raped a thousand times over if it means, somewhere, you are alive.”

“Tony,” Steve says helplessly, but Tony shakes his head, cutting him off before he can continue.

“I love you,” he says. “Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I do,” Steve says. “You know I do.”

“Then do this for me,” Tony says. “Okay? I can’t live in a world without you in it. I can’t. So don’t fight. Not today.”

For a long moment, Steve just watches him, jaw working. “I’ll win you back,” he says finally. “I swear to you, Tony, I will give it everything I have in me and I will win you back.”

Tony leans forward, pressing his forehead to Steve’s, one hand cupping Steve’s jaw. “I know,” he whispers. “And I promise I will come back to you.”

They spend the day together, hearing the horns and gongs of the tournament outside, each one like the ticking of clock, closer to the end of the world. Steve leans on Tony, and Tony rubs circles on Steve’s side, and Steve tells Tony stories he hasn’t heard before, little anecdotes about his mother, the Howling Commandoes, the first few weeks Steve was in the 21st century.

“You remember, when we first met?” Steve asks eventually. It is nearing the end of the day; the sun has begun to shine directly into their room, having dropped  far in the sky: there are only one or two bouts left of the day. After that, they will have only an hour before someone arrives to take Tony away.

“Of course,” Tony says. “Like oil and water.”

Steve smiles against the skin of Tony’s shoulder. “You remember how I said you reminded me of someone? And you immediately got mad?”

“Well, you know now that I don’t like being compared to Howard.”

“I wasn’t talking about Howard,” Steve says. He’s staring out at the window, at the sky, instead of looking at Tony. “I meant Bucky. Smart ass, cocky playboy who cares more than anyone could ever know.”

“You remind me of my mother,” Tony says. It is his turn to avoid Steve’s gaze, looking down at their knees, pressed together. They are grimy, covered in dirt and old blood both, but it is a discomfort Tony has forgotten how to feel. “Not exactly the same. She wasn’t quite so headstrong, or so loud. But she was kind in the same way. And gentle.”

Together, their breaths fill the small space of the room.

-

The guards come just after sunset.

“Tony Stark,” the guard orders. He is wearing different clothes than the ones who fetch Steve; his are a dark pitch, with more elaborate decorations and, Tony thinks, more expensive. “You have been chosen as someone’s prize.”

Tony rises with suddenly shaking knees. Despite his back, Steve pushes himself up, too, one hand pressed against the wall to keep him standing.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” Tony repeats, then leans in to kiss him. He tries to memorize the feel of him - the warm dryness of his lips, the smell of Steve, the way he moves so effortlessly against Tony, the way he feels more like an extension of Tony’s body than a separate being.

“Come. Now,” the guard orders again, sounding impatient now. Tony pulls himself away reluctantly, and, with one glance behind himself at Steve, follows the guard out. The door clangs behind him.

He doesn’t look back.

-

The room he is led to is luxurious by the standards of this place. It is large, the size of Tony’s bedroom in the Tower, and has stone flooring instead of the dust Tony has come to expect. Instead of a pallet, there is a genuine double bed, fitted with sheets and a thick woolen blanket. The room also has two windows, one at the front and one at the rear, and a door leading to a separate room; Tony suspects a restroom.

“Your owner will return shortly,” the guards inform him and lock the door as they exit, leaving Tony alone in the doorway of his new master’s room.

He swallows hard and tries to calm his rapidly beating heart. It’ll be  _fine._ Everything will be fine. it will be unpleasant, yes, but Tony can endure it for Steve. He can endure it, and eventually the Avengers will find them, and come for them, and they will be free of this whole mess. He can endure it, and eventually it will be nothing but a nightmare, a bad memory put behind him and deliberately faded so it no longer fits into reality, or truth.

Tony doesn’t want to be so presumptuous as to sit on the bed, so he leans against the wall to wait. He tries to imagine what the person must look like who’s claimed him: is he big and vicious, muscles corded thick around his arms as Tony’s neck? Is it a monster, barely human, who will beat and growl or intimidate? Or is it something else entirely, a slender woman like the one Steve had fought the first day Tony watched, a warrior with deceptive strength?

In the end, it is neither. Tony half dozes off standing there, and when he is woken by the creaking of the door, he turns to see a woman of medium build standing in the doorway, considering him with dark eyes.

“Hello,” she says, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. She has no guards; this is unprecedented. Tony didn’t think there were champions who fought willingly, but there must be, if she’s unaccompanied. Maybe that explains why her rooms are so comparatively nice; maybe it is her demands, for fighting.

What kind of fighter must she be for the emperor to be unable to claim her?

“You just going to stand there or are you going to sit down? You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Tony stumbles, taken aback. “Um - I can - I mean, whatever you -“

The woman rolls her eyes, waves a hand. “Do whatever you want, it’s not like I care.” She moves towards the corner of the room, where there’s a small bureau with four drawers; she pulls one around and starts rummaging around, to the sound of clinking glass. Cautiously, while her back is turned, Tony makes his way to the bed, perching on the very edge of it.

When the woman turns around again, she’s holding a half-full bottle of Jim Bean whiskey. “Cheers,” she says, tipping the bottle in his direction. Then she tips it back and drains the whole thing in one go. She tosses the empty bottle back into the drawer when she’s done, where it lands with the shattering tinkle of broken glass.

It takes all Tony has in him not to gape. Who is this woman? What is she doing?

“So, let’s get introductions out of the way: you don’t get to know my name. Nobody knows my name. But you can call me V.”

‘I’m Tony,” Tony says.

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Everyone’s heard of you. Someone who inspires the kind of passion that Rogers has - well.” She pulls a knife from a different drawer of the bureau, and Tony flinches, but she just uses it to pick at her nails. “It’s interesting.”

“Is that why you picked me?” Tony asks, against his better judgement. He’s never been good at controlling his brain to mouth filter. “Because I was interesting?”

“Yes,” the woman - V - says. “That and if I didn’t choose you, Paris was going to, and he’s a total cunt.”

“Paris?”

V waves a hand. “Number two on the leader board, some Greek demigod that got turned immoral when he died, I don’t know, don’t ask me the details. He struts around in gold armor and is always complaining he wants a chariot; trust me, you’d know him if you saw him.”

“Uh - good to know?” Tony tries. He really doesn’t know what to say to her; this wasn’t what he was expecting at all. Other than just the fact she’s a woman, he was anticipating someone crueler, quicker to get to the point. Honestly, he was kind of expecting to be told to get naked and prepare himself, not - this.

“Anyway, do whatever you want. I’m going back out. I’ll be back later.” V drops the knife on the table, heads towards the door. She pauses, though, before she leaves, raising an eyebrow at him on the bed.

“it’s just a mattress,” she says. “No bedbugs. It won’t bite.”

The she disappears down the hall before Tony has a chance to reply.

He stays perched on the edge of the mattress for a few minutes, wondering if maybe this is a trap, if she will come back and yell at him for getting comfortable. But a few minutes pass, and then a few more, and still she doesn’t return, so finally, Tony shucks his boots and his socks and gets ready to climb into bed.

He does check out the extra little room first, though. In it, there is a sink with running water and a toilet. Tony drinks almost greedily from the faucet, then splashes water all over his face and hands and ankles, cleaning up the grime as best he can.

Then he finally crawls into bed, curling himself up int the smallest ball possible at the end. The bed is soft, so much softer than the pallet, and Tony feels a sudden pang of guilt, indulging in all these extravagances while Steve is left, cold and shivering and alone, in their empty cell.

 _He can’t be with you without hurting,_ Tony reminds himself.  _This is what’s best._

-

He wakes the next morning to find the bed next to him empty and cold. V is no where in the room. The only sign she came back last night at all is her blue t-shirt from the day before, crumpled and sweat-stained in the corner of the room.

Tony debates his options for a minute before he decides to leave it; after all, what if she likes her clothes sweaty? He doesn’t want to mess things up for her.

So he spends the day watching the fights. Her room affords a much better view - a bigger window, with larger gaps between the slats seeming to indicate a lower threat of escape - so Tony perches on the bed and watches the whole thing. He’s finds himself relieved when the final gong blows and still Steve hasn’t appeared. At least he’s not doing something stupid to try to get Tony back.

That night, the same thing happens. V returns, chugs a bottle of alcohol, changes her clothes, then heads out again. She doesn’t acknowledge Tony at all, other than to glance over him once when she first steps into the room.

This continues for several days until finally, five days after Tony became V’s slave, Steve’s name is announced with the gong.

“Steve Rogers!” the announcer shouts, with his twisted accent. Dread leaping in his chest, Tony scrambles closer to the window so he can see Steve emerging from the shadows.

He looks - better, admittedly, which is good. He’s less bruised and though he’s walking with a slight limp, it’s nothing like the careful, delicate movements he’d needed just to keep his back from tearing open, that first day.

Still, Tony knows how fast Steve heals, and he knows it isn’t fast enough for this. Steve is going to break himself to pieces, trying to save Tony from some perceived demon, when really Tony is - fine.

Steve wins his fight, but by the skin of his teeth. His opponent, an alien seemingly composed of red rocks, nails a hit to the center of his back near the end and Steve all but folds. It takes a set of carefully positioned punches before he can get back to his feet, and even then, he moves gingerly.

So when V comes home that night, Tony waits until after she’s drained her usual bottle of liquor and she’s rummaging in her drawers for fresh clothes when he says, “Do you know Steve?”

She pauses, turning towards him with a raised eyebrow. “You mean the Captain?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “The guy I came here with.”

“I don’t know him but I see him occasionally in the pits,” she says. “Why?”

“Do you think you could get a message to him for me?”

Her confusion melts into suspicion and she squints at him. “This better not be some bullshit love confession.”

For the first time in several days, Tony feels his lips curl up into a smile. “Not quite,” he says. “Can you tell him that I say I’m safe? That he doesn’t need to worry. And tell him I’ve got his shield, okay?”

V raises an eyebrow. “You got something you’re hiding from me?”

“No it’s - a metaphor. Trust me, he’ll understand.”

“If he tries to attack me, it’s not my fault,” V says, turning back to her dresser. “I want that on record.”

“Fine,” Tony agrees.

For a moment, V is silent. “You know I’m not going to touch you,” she says finally. “I like combat, and I like being a champion, but I don’t believe in taking slaves, and I don’t believe in rape. You’re - safe here.”

It sounds like it pains her to say something so earnest. It almost makes Tony shakes. “Okay,” he says, instead of making it any worse for her. “Thank you.”

She gives him a terse nod, then heads out the door. It clangs behind her with the usual finality, but, Tony notices, this time it isn’t followed by a click; he’s not locked in here. She’s left the door open.

He doesn’t take advantage of it tonight, but he stores the knowledge in the back of his mind.

-

The next day, V returns home at the usual time, this time with a message. “He says thank you,” she says, “that he is doing well, and that he always knew you were a Stark.”

Tony breathes a sigh of relief. Stark: his safe word - it means it really is Steve who got the message, just like ‘shield’ meant Tony was really the one who sent it.

After that, things continue on in a rather dull pattern for several weeks. V still doesn’t stay in the room much - Tony wonders where she sleeps, honestly - but her visits have extended in length slightly, and she’s had a few more substantial conversations with Tony than their initial one-word exchanges.

For instance, one day she tells Tony about what she had seen that day - the gladiators training in the pits. Apparently, the highest level of heroes, the gladiators, don’t have to fight every day but once a week. In the time between, they’re able to train and practice, so when their turn to fight comes, their battles truly can be more spectacular than those at the lowest levels.

“They’re amateurs,” V says, rolling her eyes. Tony has come to learn she is not only a gladiator herself, but the highest ranking among them - the emperor’s champion for several months running. “You should see the way they throw a spear.”

Other days she’ll make some comment to Tony about Steve - how he’s doing, how he looked when she spotted him in the hallway, when she thinks he’ll come back onto the field. He hasn’t returned to fight since his last attempt, and Tony is grateful; the last thing he needs right now is to stress his back.

V only fights once a week, and Tony always knows the night she does, because when she returns back, it’s when a few small cuts on her exposed skin, cuts that always heal faster than Steve’s, as fast as Thor’s.

Really, she doesn’t need Tony’s help or attention, not at all in the way Steve had, and so Tony finds himself with a lot of free time on his hands and not much to do with it. He tries watching the battles, but frankly, they’re violent and stressful and just make Tony wonder how Steve could beat this guy,  _if_ Steve could beat this guy.

So he starts tinkering with things. First he fits the leaky faucet in the bathroom, and then the pipes of the toilet, and then V notices his hobby and starts picking him up little things from wherever for him to tinker with. A tiny radio. An old, dented flip phone. A wedding ring made of vibranium.

All and all, it’s going pretty well, so as much as Tony misses Steve, he also is content to stay in this current set up. If he can collect enough things, maybe he can build a distress signal to contact their friends and call in back up to get them the hell out of here; maybe he can build something even better. Then he and Steve could finally go home.

But after her third victory with Tony, V pauses following the battle. “Next week,” she says, “I fight Paris.”

Tony’s mind struggles to remember the name. Paris - oh,  _Paris._ The cunt who doesn’t treat his slaves well.

“Do you - I mean, you’ll win, right?”

“I don’t know,” V says, looking down into her drawer of empty, broken bottles. “He’s the only man who has ever beaten me. He is the only one here who could.”

“But - but that -“

“If he wins, he will take you,” she says bluntly. “He doesn’t like your Captain, and he likes me even less. If you have a plan, now is the time.”

Tony looks down at the vibranium ring he’d been turning over in his palm. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe I do. Can you send Steve a message?”

-

The morning V is to fight Paris, Tony wakes up early, to find V already writing for him, perched at the end of his bed.

“Let’s move,” she tells him, and Tony crawls out of bed and shoves on his shoes. He moves to grab the teleportation device he’s spent the last seven days, day and night, working on; he’d finished it just the night before. It’s small and unassuming, but powerful. Or at least he hopes it will be. He hasn’t had a chance to test it, not here, but at this point, it’s their only hope.

V stops him with a hand on the wrist before he can pick the device up. “Leave it here,” she says. “If they search you, they’ll find it. They won’t search here.”

“But if Paris wins -“

“I will do my best to get it to you,” she says. “But if you lose the device, this is all for nothing, anyway.”

Tony hates to leave it, but he can’t deny the logic in her argument. He follows her out the door, empty-handed.

He had been surprised, when V had said, a few days ago, that Tony had permission to come to the fight. He had thought, at first, that it was because V was a high-ranking champion. But when he asked her, she said it was something else entirely.

“The emperor is intrigued with you,” she had told him as she casually polished her knives. “You’re the talk of the city, the prize every champion wants. I think he wants to know what all the fuss is about.”

So now Tony is here, accompanying V into the arena. The path to the fighting pit quickly becomes unfamiliar, and so do the people shuffling through the hallway. They look like fighters themselves; most of them tall and burly, some of them injuries, a few carried by nurses on pallets, and all of them give V a wide berth. Tony sticks close to her back to avoid being touched.

Eventually, though, V does leave him. She takes him all the way into the arena, into a little corner by the champion’s pits. “I have to go prepare,” she tells him. “Stay here, okay?”

Tony swallows hard, but nods. V offers him the closest thing she gets to a smile - nothing more than a tight press of her lips, really, but it’s something - and pats him once on the shoulder, before she’s gone.

The stadium is loud. That was the first thing Tony noticed about it, going in, and it’s the first thing he thinks, now. It’s oddly traditional, for such an advanced society, like something out of a Shakespearean play. Spectators line the stands, screaming and shaking sighs as, out on the minor field, one burly man battles another. As Tony watches, one mans hand is separated in a spray of blue blood. Tony looks away.

He can’t see much of the stands from here. There are the general admission spectators, of course, but most of the rich mean and officials are in private boxes higher in the stands, including the emperor. Tony can see the edge of one private box, larger and more prominent than the others; it’s completely filled with security personnel and, in the middle, a sliver of a man wearing a shimmering emerald cloak. It might be him, but Tony only sees him for a second before he’s swallowed by his security team again; not long enough to confirm anything.

Tony ends up having to sit through several fights before V’s comes up. They’d come late, of course, but V needed time to warm up, don her armor. Tony tries to watch a few of the fights, but after the second man he saw choke on his own blood, he decided to count spectators instead. About half of them seem to be prepared to support V. The other half are here for Paris.

A fair fight, then.

By the time V’s name is called, Tony is even more of a bundle of nerves than before.  _Please,_ he thinks, as he watches her walk onto the field.  _Please win. I just need one more day._

“V vs. Paris, final battle of the evening. Champions, please take your places.”

V rolls her shoulders, coming in place. A moment later, Paris emerges from the dark corridor on the opposite side of the stadium, to the roar of the crowd. He looks - not that intimidating, Tony thinks. Strong, sure, lean and muscly, but not like Thor or Steve. He looks young, maybe early twenties, and if it weren’t for the way he struts in his armor, a man totally at ease with himself, Tony would think he’s playing dress-up with the garb he’s wearing.

He’s not, though. He looks confident as he takes his place across from V, sword held casually in one hand.

V and Paris exchange a few words Tony doesn’t here. Paris smirks. Tony can’t see V’s face.

“The battle will begin in three, two, one,” a voice booms, and then there is the chime of the gong to mark the start of the fight.

For a moment, neither of them moves. They circle each other slowly, each looking for an opening. The crowd waits with bated breath. Then V does something - a slip of the foot, maybe, a twist of the ankle - that Paris sees as an opening. He lunges, and the battle is on in earnest.

It’s hard for Tony to see what’s going on from down here, no matter how he cranes his neck. The arena floor is dry and dusty, kicking up a cloud wherever feet pound. It half-obscures Tonys view of the two fighters, so that he can make out little more than limbs and glinting edges of swords, the clang of metal.

He does catch a few moments. V slamming her sword, hard, into Paris’s chest and making him stumble. Paris sweeping V’s feet out from under her, and sending her sprawling into the dirt. V fully leaping over Paris’ head, forcing him to duck and run to avoid her onslaught.

In the end, though, V’s actions are not enough. They end up circling each other, again, each with a few more injuries than they started with. This time, Paris makes the mistake, and V goes in for the kill. Only it wasn’t a mistake. It was a feint. And at the end, V is face-down in the dirt, Paris’s sword on her spine.

“Congratulations, Champion Paris,” the announcer booms. “You have won against the Champion V.”

The crowd screams. Tony’s heart sinks in his chest, even as he watches Paris let V up from under her foot so she can limp her way back over to Tony. Her eyes are dull, face blank.

“I’m sorry,” she says once she’s within earshot. Tony feels like he might vomit, but he just shakes his head.

“It’s not your fault,” he says.

But he was so  _close._

“Paris has beaten the reigning champion,” the announcer continues. “He will now have first pick of the prizes.”

And there is no question about this, now. Tony’s heart sinks as he watches Paris turn towards him, shining teeth throwing through his smirk, and he opens his mouth to -

A helmet clangs down at his feet, and the arena goes silent, anticipatory cries fading to held breath.

“I am Champion Rogers,” a familiar voice declares from the sidelines, “And I challenge you for first prize.”

Tony turns his head, already knowing what he’ll see: Steve. Steve, looking good, looking  _healed;_ Steve with a sword on his belt and a chest plate over his shirt; Steve, staring straight at Tony, eyes blue and wide.

“No,” Tony says, shaking his head desperately. “No, you can’t.”

Steve just smiles at him.

Around them, there is silence as the universal translators work to convey Steve’s message to the audience; then a beat.

The audience roars.

Paris himself sticks one toe out to prod at the helmet. “With or without armor?” he asks Steve, eyes gleaming in triumph.  _He wanted this,_ Tony thinks desperately. He probably saw this coming, knew from the moment he saw he was fighting V. He wanted Steve to challenge him, to step outside of the prearranged hierarchy. After all, it kills two birds with one stone: get Tony, and get an excuse to kill Steve without having to wait for Steve to work his way up through the champions’ ranks.

Oh, Steve.

“Without,” Steve declares, reaching down to unclip his chest plate. It falls off his body with a clang and a plume of dust. “Hand to hand. No weapons.”

If anything, that only makes Paris’s smirk widen. “You know I am a god, don’t you?” he drawls.

Steve squares his shoulders. “I have beaten gods before.”

“Well, if you insist,” Paris says, and raises a hand to call two servants to himself. Together, they start quickly stripping him of his armor.

“Steve,” Tony calls. Steve turns towards him, like a moth to flame, crossing the distance between them in a few strides. “Don’t do this,” Tony begs. “He’s going to take you apart, Steve. I can’t lose you.”

“I’m not going to let him take you,” Steve says. He raises his hands to cup Tony’s cheek, press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m going to protect you.”

“Steve,” Tony starts, feeling tears prick at the backs of his eyes.

But he’s interrupted. “Well, are we going to begin or not?” Paris asks, that same lolling drawl like he’s a lazy Southerner, not a hero-turned-God of Troy.

“I love you,” Steve tells Tony, and then steps back and lets the guards lead him away, their hands like lead on his shoulders.

They position him in the first spectator’s box; a position of honor, from what Tony has heard. The only other person in the box is V, nursing her wounded arm.

She sends Tony a tight smile. “I tried,” she says.

“I know,” Tony says. “Do you think he can win?”

V sighs, looks away. “Paris is good,” she says.

Tony doesn’t ask anything else.

‘

They set Paris and Steve up in the traditional wrestling position, closer to each other than usual, closer each to the center of the arena. There is the chiming of a gong, and the sharp pull of a red flag through the air; then it begins.

At first, the crowd, like Tony, holds it breaths. Steve and Paris circle each other, each looking for an opening, the best way to dart in and take each other down, but they are each trained soldiers. The circling goes on, and on, and then goes on too long, and the crowd dissolves into scattered boos.

Not wanting to lose the favor of his supporters, Paris takes it as a cue to dart in and try to seize Steve, aiming for the waist. But it’s not a good opening, a halfway attempt at best, and Steve dodges out of it easy, his sweat-slicked skin slippery and hard to hold on to.

The boos spike again, and Paris and Steve return to their little dance. Paris keeps going for openings, but Steve keeps dodging. He is more patient than Paris; he is fighting for one man and one man only. He does not need to worry about the favor of crowds.

Finally, though, Steve must catch something that Tony doesn’t, some misstep or stumble, because he darts in to seize Paris around the legs and take him down. They go down thrashing, like some strange, eight-limbed creature, and then they begin to fight in earnest. It is a dry day, and quickly their movements lead to a dust cloud rising, one that obscures all details aside from the general form of their bodies, moving through the mist.

Tony resists the urge to groan, leaning forward in his seat as though that few extra inches will gain him the perspective he needs. The crowd, too, waits with bated breath: anything could be happening. Steve, the underdog, the outsider, could be taking down Paris; but just as likely that Paris would be taking apart Steve, blow by blow.

Finally, there is the sharp, popping snap of a spine breaking. The mess of limbs goes still. A body pushes itself to its feet and stumbles a moment before righting, straightening, and emerging from the dust.

Tony almost sags into his chair in relief when it is Steve who presents himself champion, bruises and cuts blooming all over his body, left arm curled against his chest with a dislocated or broken wrist, but  _alive._ He seeks Tony out in the crowd, and when his eyes light on him, he gives him the most beaming, triumphant smile.

“He is dead,” V says, and Tony glances over to see her watching Steve with a curious expression on her face. Some of it is jealousy, maybe, but he could swear there’s also some pride. “You are free.”

Tony swallows hard, turning back to Steve. “We are free,” he says. He gives himself one more moment to savor the feeling before he shoves himself to his feet. “Come on. We have to get home.”

Tony is not allowed to walk out on the field to greet Steve, but he finds him in the pits, as Steve is emerging from the field. The farther he gets from the spotlight, the more pronounced his injuries become, but he is here, and smiling, and all Tony’s.

“You’re an idiot,” Tony says as he pulls Steve into his arms. He presses a kiss to Steve’s collar bone, the hollow of his throat, the point of his pulse. “Don’t ever do something like that again.”

“Okay,” Steve says easily.

“I love you,” Tony says.

“I love you,” Steve replies.

“Well, this is touching, and all, but we’ve got places to be and a time limit if we want to get moving before the emperor realizes you haven’t returned to your room.” V raises an eyebrow at them, tapping at her wrist where a watch would be. “Let’s move?”

“Right,” Tony says, pulling away Steve enough to give him a once-over. “Anything urgent? Anything that can’t wait until we get to the Tower?”

“Nope,” Steve says confidently. Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “Really, I’m good. We’ll be home soon, right?”

“Right,” Tony says, taking another step back. His hand falls to squeeze Steve’s, and he tugs him along with him. “Let’s go.”

The device is just where Tony left it this morning in V’s room, when they were called away. Tony picks it up, then turns, taking one of Steve’s hands in his, and nodding at V until she links her hand with Steve’s free one.

“Avengers Tower, here we come,” Tony says, and clicks the button.

-

They open their eyes in the team living room.

Tony could dance for how excited and relieved he is to be back, but instead, he just drops the device on the side table and presses Steve down onto the couch. “JARVIS, call Bruce,” Tony orders. “How long have we been gone?”

“Three days, sir,” JARVIS says.

“I - what? No, it was like three months, at least.”

“I am sorry, sir, it was not. You disappeared during a fight with an unidentified alien force at 2:16 pm on April 15th, 2018. It is now April 18th, 2018.”

“Huh. So the rest of the Avengers -“

“Have now returned from Dr. Strange’s wedding,” Jarvis says. “In fact, the ceremony was cut short upon notification of your disappearance. They have been working to locate you since you went missing. I am sure they will be thrilled to hear of your reappearance.”

“Strange won’t be,” Tony says darkly. “He’s gonna be pissed we fucked up his wedding. Ugh. Whatever, fucker deserves it for making us deal with that bitch.”

“Tony,” Steve chides. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

Tony makes a face. “What? Strange isn’t - oh, yeah, the girl. I forgot about that.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “No, you didn’t.”

And, okay, no he didn’t, but, whatever. “Oh, my god, Steve. You know what just occurred to me?”

“We can eat bacon?” Steve guesses.

“We can eat bacon!” Tony crows. “And pizza, oh, god, my mistress, I have missed her - and  _good showers,_ and a bath in our Jacuzzi, and a night in our  _bed,_ my God, have I missed our bed - I mean, V’s wasn’t  _bad_ but it wasn’t  _ours,_ that fluffy down comforter, God, I would die for that comforter -“

“Maybe medical first?” Steve suggests. Tony startles at the suggestion - Steve  _never_ suggests medical, not even when he’s bleeding out of a very obvious abdominal wound, and Tony is immediately concerned, before Steve continues, “I’d like to get you checked out. Make sure nothing happened that I didn’t know about.”

“I’m fine,” Tony says, “I told you, Steve, nothing happened.”

“I know,” Steve says, reaching out to lay his uninjured hand on Tony’s elbow. “And I believe you, but I want to get you looked at anyway. Please? We don’t know what alien pathogens might have gotten into your system. You can examine them, if can find them in your system.”

And, okay, good point - way for Steve to use science against him. “Fine, but you’re getting checked out first,” Tony compromises. “That wrist needs wrapping before it heals crooked.”

“Deal,” Steve agrees readily.

Tony knows he should head for the elevator, now, but he pauses. Steve looks so -  _Steve,_ in this light. The light of their kitchen, the light of their home. It’s easy to imagine that the last three months didn’t happen; that these injuries are from their battle with the robots, that all Steve needs is a few bandages and a shot of the extra-strength painkillers Tony and Bruce designed just for him, and everything will be right as rain. The world isn’t that simple, Tony knows, and he knows this is going to be a long few weeks - filling in the Avengers on everything they missed, getting re-accustomed to the human world, getting re-accustomed to  _life_ again - but they’re here, now. Steve’s standing here, alive and whole in their home, just waiting for him.

Tony reaches forward to cup Steve’s jaw in his hand. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go to medical. And then we can eat bacon.”

“What’s bacon?” V asks from behind him. Tony yelps and jumps half a foot in the air at the reminder that’s she’s in the room. Steve breaks out into a laugh, and Tony know he’s laughing  _at_ him, but he doesn’t mind.

“Jesus fuck,” he says, pressing a hand over his heart dramatically. “Don’t scare me like that. I have a heart condition.”

V raises an eyebrow, supremely unimpressed.

“Come on,” Steve says finally, once he’s managed to get his giggles under control. “Medical. V, you should come, too, meet the team.”

“Oh, joy,” V says flatly. “More humans.”

Tony grins. “Aw, come on, you love us.”

V just stares at him, dead-eyed. “Jury’s out,” she says.

“Well, we love you,” Tony says, and before V can protest, leans in to give her a smacking kiss on her cheek. Her jaw jumps, but she doesn’t move away. She more looks surprised than anything.

 _Aw, honey,_ Tony thinks.  _You are going to love the Avengers._

“I suppose, if we are going to meet others,” V says, as they all start moving towards the elevator. “I should tell you, my real name is Brunnhilde. Though I’d really rather you call me Valkyrie.”

“Nice to meet you, Valkyrie,” Tony says, as he presses the button for the lab floor. “Where are you from, anyway? You never did say.”

“Asgard,” Valkyrie says casually. Tony’s eyes widen, and he turns towards Steve, who looks just as surprised as him.

“I don’t suppose you know Thor, then, do you?” Tony asks, turning back to her.

Valkyrie frowns. “We used to date. How do you know Thor?”

Tony clears his throat. “Well -“

The elevator bings.

“Guess you’re about to find out,” Tony mutters. “Welcome to the Avengers, Valkyrie.” He takes Steve’s hand in his and squeezes.

The elevator doors slide open.

**Author's Note:**

> is this a stevetony ragnarok au? maybe. I didn’t intend that when I went to write it - mostly I was feeling angsty and thinking, god, wouldn’t it be fun to write an au where steve has to fight every day to keep tony from getting hurt? because, you know, i’m angsty like that. but then it turned into this. I don’t know. sorry, taika, if I stole too many of your plot lines. I love you. and, to be fair, the whole ‘fighting for your lives in a stadium’ thing isn’t super unique.
> 
> anyway find me on tumblr at nasafic.tumblr.com
> 
> title from the quote: "I'll take care of you. / It's rotten work. / Not to me. Not if it's you."


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